SPO1510 WALKTHROUGH (Guide)

ACT 1
-- Everywhere Always
Objective: Showing your presences, both in classrooms and online
The game begins in the spring semester and has an 80% mandatory presence. You may play this at
the Rookie level in which you as an absolute minimum have to be present 80% of the time given to
case discussions (Tuesdays 11:30 to 1:15 p.m., Room C101) and work with mandatory assignments
(Thursdays 8:30 to 12:15, Room A239). If you play it at the Elite level you also have to show a very
high level of presence online, mainly on Twitter, where your lecturer often will try and engage you in
dialogue. The strategy you choose in this level has to be based on your lecturer. At present the
lecturer is lenient as for class room presence as long as you are active online.

At this point its useful to have a look at the reward system of the game.

SPO1510 (as well as other courses at colleges and universities in Norway) use the following grading
system:

Letter grades
The grading scale with letter values is a descending scale where A is the best grade, E the lowest pass
grade and F is fail. The assessment is based on defined, qualitative criteria for each grade in the
grading scale.
Below you find the general, qualitative descriptions of the criterias used in the assessment of your
work.
An excellent performance, clearly outstanding. The candidate demonstrates excellent
judgement and a high degree of independent thinking.
A very good performance. The candidate demonstrates sound judgement and a very good
degree of independent thinking.
A good performance in most areas. The candidate demonstrates a reasonable degree of
judgement and independent thinking in the most important areas.
A satisfactory performance, but with significant shortcomings. The candidate demonstrates
a limited degree of judgement and independent thinking.
A performance that meets the minimum criteria, but no more. The candidate demonstrates
a very limited degree of judgement and independent thinking.
A performance that does not meet the minimum academic criteria. The candidate
demonstrates an absence of both judgement and independent thinking.
So it might be a wise strategy to both be present at the case discussions and on Twitter, as this might
make it easier to finish the other levels on time. In the first act of the game there are only two levels
of difficulty Elite and Rookie, but in the rest of the game you are given the choice of playing either
at Elite, Veteran or Rookie. Playing at the Elite difficulty and managing all levels will make it possible
for you to be rewarded an A or a B. Veteran players will have no problems getting the C reward.
Those who choose to play through the game on Rookie only will end up with either a D or an E.
Failing in completing the mandatory tasks will give you an F. The trick in this game is to try and play it
at the Elite and Veteran level as often as possible, and doing your best at all times. The lecturer will
brief you at the start of each mission and give you individual advice on your mandatory tasks.

Act 2
-- Nailing the Bird in the Paper Cloud
Objective: Create a profile on Twitter, and then use it to create a Paper.li account, and create a
profile on SoundCloud
Like Act 1, Act2 is fairly easy to complete. All you have to do is create a twitter profile, a Paper.li
account and a SoundCloud profile. Playing at Rookie difficulty here might not necessarily lead to low
rewards, but Elite and Veteran players might be in a better position for Act 3. The trick here is to
choose a Twitter nick that signals to the world that you are someone that one day might be a game
developer. So stay away from nicks that are sexual in nature or otherwise make one think of teenage
kids instead of up and coming professionals. On the other side you might use a teenage nick but do
serious and content related tweets, and thereby create the impression that the nick was meant as
irony, i.e. its not the profile nick that matters but the content of the tweets.
You have to follow your fellow students, the lecturer and as many game developers, game suppliers,
and gamers as you can find. Having these profiles and accounts are of course mandatory, and if you
dont the game is over.

Act 3
-- Words in the cloud
Objective: Make three 3 content related tweets a day
This level is a continuation of Act 2 and requires you to choose actively between the three levels of
difficulty. Playing at Elite and Veteran difficulty you will have to make your tweets content related,
that is tweet about gaming culture, game and ethics, game reviews and game development. The trick
here is to read the lecture blog SPO1510 Gaming Culture at https://spo1510.wordpress.com/. Here
you will find an abundance of topics to tweet about. Tweeting reviews of your favourite games, or
games you have just completed is also a wise strategy. Making tweets that consists of just
meaningless letters or word, or overly personal in tone will quickly mark you as a Rookie and might
give you problems in later levels of the game. Those who want to get the A and B rewards should try
and engage other serious gamers and if possible game developers in conversation or at the very least
get retweeted and/or favourite by such Twitter users. This is difficult! To secure the C reward it is
enough to just tweet content related stuff, but if you do it all the time and is totally and completely
focused on professional matters, you might get the B reward. Stay focused! The sole point of this
exercise is to train you in professional use of twitter; using Twitter as a tool to get in touch with
fellow developers, potential customers or who knows? potential employers.
BUT remember that your third tweet might just be your Paper.li tweeting itself automatically every
time it has a new edition. This naturally reduces the content related tweets of your own making to
just two per day. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy right?

Act 4
-- All time high
Objective: Upload to SoundCloud a recording of yourself, talking about your favourite video game
In this level you have to make a recording of yourself talking about your favourite computer/video
game and how it may, or may not be played according to ethical theories. And you have to make it
publicly available so that your fellow students and the lecturer may listen to it. It doesnt have to be
an hour long talk show if you are able to be concise and to the point. In order to manage this level
you have to go through the lecture Ethics and Computer Games at
https://spo1510.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/ethics-and-computer-games/
You may do this on Rookie and just make a quick speech without much content, but that will give you
a D, E or even an F in reward. Better do this on no less than Veteran, focusing on at least one ethical
theory, for instance on normative ethics, or just focus on the Geneva Convention, and at the very
least grab a C. Elite players should focus on Utilitarian and Kantian points of view, virtue theories,
duty theories and consequentialist theories, as well as the Geneva Convention. This will make it
possible for you to earn A or B for this particular task.

Remember: Higher education is not about doing the things you have always done in the same way
you think is ok. Its all about learning new things, pushing yourself beyond your own border and
managing tasks on a high level of difficulty so as to finally, at the end of the day, be able to convince
an employer that you are the right stuff for just this game development job.

Source: Cartoon based on a work by Yoh at http://blog.yoh.com.

Act 5
-- Reviewing the Game
Objective: Make one - 1 - game review of a game of your own choosing and upload it to SoundCloud
By now you will probably have worked out that in this game you are usually playing the lone wolf,
and this mission is no exception. Here you have to make a review of a game of your own choosing,
and upload it to SoundCloud. Playing it as Rookie might give you a D or an E, but if you want C, B or A,
you should definitively try and play this on Veteran or Elite. Have a look at how reviewers writing for
IGN, Gamesradar or Gamespot do it, and try and do the same. Write a script first where you look at
positive and negative sides of the game (pro et contra). You might want to give the game a grade
based on plusses and minuses, for instance:
7.3 Good
+ Fun combat
+ Intuitive controls
+ Good mix of content
Severe frame rate drops
Poor communication
- Average AI

When you have done this, you record yourself and upload the review to your SoundCloud.

Act 6
-- Letters on a paper
Objective: Write a short essay on ethics and computer games (minimum 5 pages, maximum 10
pages).
You are close to the final stages of the game and in this mission you have to read the special
instructions given in the mandatory tasks description as for how to do this assignment.
(https://spo1510.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/the-assignment/ )
You have to analyse no less than seven -7 games, either those the lecturer have suggested or
games of your own choosing. If you chose games yourself, remember that you have to be able to
analyse them based on the questions given in the task. Writing an essay is not too difficult, but if you
want to finish this level on Elite or Veteran you should take a look at this helpful web page:
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Essay You also have to read how to do written assignments at
HiNT:http://pub.hint.no/Kvalitet/Dokumenter/Veiledning%20til%20akademisk%20skriving%20ved%2
0HiNT.pdf Those who want to play this on Elite should do some research on Internet, but it is
possible to manage to complete this level with an A or an B paying close attention to everything that
is mentioned in this lecture https://spo1510.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/ethics-and-computergames/

Act 7
-- Payday
Objective: Upload three of your mandatory assignments for final assessment
This is the last level and its all about portfolio assessment. The lecturer demands that one of the
mandatory assignments you upload in Fronter is the essay, but a part from that you may choose the
two other assignments you want to have assessed. You may choose your two SoundCloud
assignments (one game review and one My favourite game), or you may choose your use of
Twitter (including the Paper.li) and one of your SoundCloud assignments (for instance the game
review). In order to complete this level you have to upload the essay in fronter, and then in the
introduction to your essay state which other two assignments you want to put forward for
assessment and include the links to them (SoundCloud or Twitter profile) in the introduction text.

If you put forward your work for guidance at 4th of May, followed the advice given by the lecturer,
and more or less tried to play on Elite or Veteran, you should be able to end the game with good
grades. If you played all the levels on Rookie you might have to be satisfied with lover grades. Its all
basically up to you what grade you finally end up with. Getting an A demands hard work, B likewise.
C should be possible with staying focused and doing your best, and D and E if you just sailed through
all the levels on Rookie.
===============================================================================
The End
===============================================================================